FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Star Wars: Cold Vengeance

Chapter 2

The shield generator was up and at full power, Echo Base was safe from any planetary bombardment, unless the Empire was willing to stick around for the few weeks it would take to break through the energy shield. By then, the base would be long evacuated. No, the attack would come from the ground.

It would take a few hours for the Empire to mobilize a strike force and get their troops onto the snow, which gave the brave rebel defenders precious time to get their defenses ready. Echo base had a network of trenches that provided cover for infantry from forward fire and a vast array of anti-infantry turrets and anti-armor satellite turrets that covered all land entrances to the base. There was also several squadrons of snow speeders, Y-wings and fighters to provide air support and to counter the inevitable swarms of tie fighters.

Colonel Mortin supervised the preparations as well as he could. Rebel code breakers were trying to intercept any transmissions from the Imperial fleet to get an idea of the composition of the enemy force. There was no such luck, the Empire was using new and more complex encryption codes than what the rebels could decipher. Mortin resorted to using everything at his disposal. He had repeated blasters set up every twenty meters on the first two lines of trenches and mortars at the rear. Turrets were spaced between the trenches on the surface and gave them a clear line of sight over the flat, white expanse. Any assault on his position, in the rocky crevices around Echo Base, would have to come from across the flat terrain.

While he had the tactical advantage of both high ground and cover, he knew better than to dismiss the Empire's offensive prowess. He had seen them on Yavin 4, the sheer ferocity at white the stormtroopers fought and how they swarmed his position with no regard to their own lives. He hated how the Empire took bright young men and women and turned them into slaves for their cause. Stormtroopers obeyed without question and those who didn't, they were quickly weeded out and purged. That was what he had both seen and heard. Corporal Korrin had told his own tale of how he left the Empire many times.

Mortin imagined how the Empire would attack his position. He imagined that it would begin with a quick blitz from Tie Fighters and bombers which would be followed up by a sustain armored assault with infantry for support. It was pretty much the only strategy that the Empire used. The Empire wasn't unimaginative, the tactic was simply very efficient. Very little could stand up to a sustained Imperial armored assault for long and even though Echo Base's defenses were very impressive by many standards, he doubted that it would last for more than a few hours.

It was a blessing that the Imperial fleet had come out of hyperspace so close to the planet. It did catch them by surprise, but the shield generator didn't take that long to activate and it was up before any bombardment could occur. Mortin could only imagine what the Imperial officer was thinking, especially with the asteroid belt nearby. If he had just jumped the fleet out with the asteroid belt between them and Hoth, the early warning sensors never would have detected them and Echo base would be a glass crater right now.

Mortin pushed up his sleeve a little and looked at his chrono that was wrapped in a special tape to prevent the metal from freezing to his skin. Analyst predicted it would take two and a half hours before the first Imperial transports landed. It had been one and a half hours, giving Mortin enough time to head back inside and check up on his men and get a feeling for how they were doing.

The Mandalorian left his post on top of the largest hill in the area where the Ion Cannon was placed and headed inside through a hatch that had been placed right into the stone. He climbed down the ladder, leaving a few spotters up top who would inform him if anything occurred. He walked down the icy corridors of the Echo 4, one of many far reaching outposts that were set up for the defense of the main facility two klicks to the east.

Echo four was a small, but important installation, it overlooked both the shield generator and the Ion Cannon. While his company had been originally assigned as a last covering force, he decided that they were best placed up front and not in the rear. By the time the Empire reached anything at the rear, it would either be too late to stop them from doing anything, or Baava company would have been ordered to retreat by them.

When the order came, they would fall back into the mountains where a GR-75 transport was nestled between the rocks. The long, rounded ship was the staple of rebel logistics. It was a strong and reliable ship that could take a beating and move at high speeds, all necessary for running an Imperial blockade. It would be prepped and ready to go by the time his men and whatever personnel that were left were on board. It would be the last transport out, anyone who missed it was going to be left behind on this cold and now occupied planet. He hated the idea of leaving anyone behind, but he knew that there were orders to leave at a very specific time to coincide with the departure of the last of the rebel fighters which would run escort.

Mortin found his men in the hangar. They were all dressed up and ready to go out when the time came. They sat around the crates and snow speeders, talking excitedly about anything, but the coming battle. No one liked to talk about what was going to happen next, they all knew what was going to happen. The Empire had a fleet in orbit and were attacking, they had all been in this situation.

Mortin settled down with a group of soldiers, a Human, a Rodian and two Sullustans who were talking about their homeworld. The creatures who face looked as if it had been cut up by a vibroblade multiple times, leaving deep parallel scars and no nose, spoke fondly of their volcanic home and how it was pretty much the opposite of Hoth. Where there was snow here, Sullust had lava. Where the air was crisp and clean here, the air was full of sulfur and smoke. Mortin didn't like the idea of living their as much as he hated living here on Hoth and yet the Sullustan were homesick. He guessed that being used to that kind of environment, Sullust was paradise for them and being here was a shock. They still looked pumped and ready to fight though, especially after the Empire had taken Sullust and enslaved it people.

That was the common thing between all people who fought against the Empire here in the Rebel Alliance. Everyone had some sort of vendetta against the Empire. They had been wronged in some way and saw the Rebel Alliance as a place where they could fight back and one day hope to right that wrong.

Mortin's beloved home of Mandalore, neutral in the Clone Wars, was now occupied. The Empire wished to take advantage of Mandalore's rich natural resources that had allowed the proud people to be warriors that had once pushed the Republic to the brink many millennia ago. After the Mandalorian wars, the people of Mandalore left behind many of their warlike ways and settled down to be farmers with families. The strong family bond was still there and any Mandalorian still quite capable of defending themselves, but they preferred to remain home.

Mortin didn't like that. Mandalore was supposed to be a planet of warriors, not farmers. He had joined Death Watch and their idea of reinstating the old Mandalorian way. He fought for them for years with the idea that one day, he would see Mandalore in its former glory, Others had taken advantage of their noble cause and warped it though.

At some point, Death Watch changed from a crusade of the old ways to a terrorist organization. It assassinated the pacifist leader of Mandalore, Duchess Satine Kryze and engulfed the planet in civil war. Brother fought brother and Mortin could no longer support the group that had done such a thing. He left shortly later. The new Death Watch, under the command of some dark being that seethed with hate and carried a lightsaber, had tried to stop him. He had lost his eye during his escape and some friends who had helped him. Shortly after that, the Empire came to power and Mortin head that the Empire had taken control of the planet from several contacts he had left back on the planet.

From one government he didn't support to another.

Mortin became a bounty hunter, following in the footsteps of the famous Jango Fett. He set up on Coruscant where there were plenty of people willing to pay to have enemies removed. He started slow, but quickly had a steady stream of credits flowing in from multiple contracts and sponsors. He was unbiased in his target, taking any job to make ends meet until he came across a contract from the Empire. The Empire was interested in his work and wanted to hire him to track down a rebel spy who had snuck into the senate and were convincing politicians into secretly supporting the rebellion.

At the time, Mortin knew very little about the rebellion. He knew there were people opposed to the Empire. There was always a someone fighting against the government, that had never changed since the birth of civilization which was marked by such events. He didn't really know about any true rebellion. He only kept up to date on the status of his homeworld which was growing bleak.

Why did Mortin take the job from the Empire? Credits were really the only reason.

He agreed and began to stake out the Senate. The spy was said to be one of Bail Organa's assistants. Bail Organa was a renowned senator who had spoken out against the Empire on numerous occasions and had once been in the running for the office of Supreme Chancellor. Only if he had one, he seemed like the kind of guy that Mortin thought had a straight head on his shoulders. The Empire couldn't touch him, he was too well connected and killing him would turn him into a martyr.

Imperial Intelligence also told him that the spy was to have a meeting with a Senator from Sullust on getting raw materials sent to the rebellion to build more ships. Much of the rebellion was reliant on ships on loan, but it was believed that they had access to shipyards and could build their own fleet, but were short on material. Mortin was given a location and a time, he was to kill the spy quietly before he could get to the meeting.

The streets of Coruscant were a mess of faces and bodies that came from all corners of the galaxy to mix and mingle in the galactic capital. Mortin had a roster of all of Organa's employees and their faces. He used that information to program a series of surveillance cameras to scan as much traffic to the Senate building as he could. It was impossible to get every single being that came close, but if he got lucky, he would take that chance. The cameras scanned thousands of faces a second, sending the images back to Mortin's ship which was docked at the senate. The ship's computer ran the faces against his roster and would tell him if any of them were matches.

The Empire didn't know which of Mortin's assistants was the spy so Mortin needed to watch for all of them. In case the person got past him, he had back monitoring systems piggybacking off of the senate's own surveillance system. He saw everything happening in the building. It put him on a race to the clock to intercept the person before he could get to the Senator who had already arrived, but it was better than missing him entirely.

Mortin sat in his ship's cockpit in his Mandalorian armor. He had his feet kicked up on the console as he watched the monitors run through the faces. There were so many unique faces and it made Mortin feel small and insignificant in this large galaxy. He could die and no one would know his name in a generation. It was a scary and foreboding thought to think about. He used to be fine with that thought when he was with Death Watch because at the time, he knew that if he died, his small and mostly overlooked contribution to the cause would have pushed Mandalore closer to the old times when it was a planet worth noting. Now with no ties, he was just another bounty hunter just trying to make a living.

"Sir." The ship's computer chirped. "I have a match." The screens all froze and changed to show one face. It was a human, young and moving through the streets. The exterior cameras had done their job. He was dressed in traditional Alderaan garb of light colors that made him both look poor and rich at the same time. Alderaan had a way of doing that, it was a planet where both the rich and the poor lived in harmony and their clothes reflected that, made of high quality material, but in a style that anyone on the planet would be seen in.

The man walked, seemingly in no rush and in no way drawing attention to himself, other than by Mortin.

The bounty hunter got up and transferred the man's coordinates to his wrist pad and synced it with the ship so that he could continue to monitor the man while he planned a quiet intercept. The spy was going to go through the main entrance in an attempt to fade in with the crowd, but he was still a ways off and there were a lot of dark alleys and corners along the way. No one would miss him for some time if he were to disappear while on his way.

Mortin saw the perfect spot on his map that he brought up. It was about half a click from the building. The man would have to walk under a series of low overhangs that blocked out a lot of the overhead light. Mortin would be able to slip into the crowd and pull the man out. Sometimes being surrounded by people was the best way to be invisible.

A course was plotted and the ship, an old Mandalorian Gauntlet Fighter that had been used by his brothers to deploys troops onto the battlefield through a bomber bay type door on the bottom where jetpack bearing men and woman could deploy from. It was a good craft and its controls were familiar to most Mandalorians. Why get a new, alien ship when the one he had worked just fine?

The ship flew through the crowded airways of Coruscant the short distance that was needed for him to get into positioned. Mortin left his craft at a nearby landing pad that he went ahead and bribed the dock guards there. It was amazing how far credits got him these days. People so corruptible and easy to manipulate, like Death Watch.

From there, Mortin went down to where he would wait for the spy. He stuck to the shadows with his full Mandalorian armor on which at one point had resembled the armor that the Clone Troopers wore. Funny how the Republic had once fought and so nearly destroyed the Mandalorians only to use an army of Mandalorian clones to fight their war for them. Even thousands of years since the fall of the Mandalorian Neo Crusaders, Mandalorians were still the soldier of choice.

The spy was close now. Mortin scanned the crowd as it walked by him, a sea of body. His suit was airtight so he couldn't smell what he presumed to be quite the smell. Some of the people going by him looked as if soap was a taboo in their culture. The galaxy was an old and disgusting place.

Mortin saw the man. He looked calm, kept his eyes forward and moved at the same pace as the crowd. He was surrounded by bodies, it would be hard to get to him, but a crowd was like water. It was malleable and could be waded through with some effort. Mortin took a step forward and into the crowd, even in his armor, he was just another individual.

He made his way closer and closer to the individual. He silently slipped between the small gaps between people who naturally parted, giving way to the obviously dangerous man who would have no patience for anyone in his way. He was getting closer. He could reach out and grab him and he was in the process when the man stopped suddenly. Mortin stopped as well, a Togruta, with bright red skin and white striped horns and head tails bumped into him. The Togruta was about to hit him when he saw what he was about to attack. He quickly changed his mind.

The spy turned around and looked at Mortin right in the eyes, right through his visor. They paused, staring at each other, Mortin's hand outstretched, ready to grab him.

"We should go somewhere less crowded." The man said as if he were greeting an old friend. He turned around and walked off to the side into a small building that looked like it catered some sort of cuisine. Mortin had no choice to follow, as confused as he was.

The inside was small and cramped, but held a homely visage with paintings and old statues that could have been the family heirlooms of the family of Bothans who were running the place. They looked surprised when the Mandalorian entered, but were quick to get him seated at a table. The human went over to his table and sat down as a female Bothan, the daughter brought out a set of cups and a pot of tea.

Mortin paid the Bothans no mind, instead he stared intently at the human who he had been hired to kill as he poured both of them a glass of the Corellian tea. He sipped at it, but Mortin didn't touch his.

"You know I was hired to kill you." Mortin said flatly. There was no point in lying to the man, he knew everything by the looks of it.

"I know, but you won't." He set down the cup and poured himself another drink. The way the man acted angered Mortin, he seemed so full of himself, so sure that Mortin wasn't about to pull out a blaster and kill him right there. That was what he was hired to do and he hadn't gone back on a contract before nor did he plan to.

"Now why do you say that." Mortin fingered the leather strap of his holster on his side. The blaster was most visible weapon he had. Mandalorian armor was as much of a weapon as it was armor. It had a flamethrower, poison dart shooters, a grappling hook, built in EMP pulsers and sonic emitters. He could take down just about anything that came at him. "I've never failed a job."

"I can offer you something even more valuable than what the Empire is paying you." The spy grinned and swirled his tea cup.

"I don't need credits and you can't bribe me." Mortin said truthfully. Past targets had begged for their lives, offering everything they had. One person, a prince of some out of the way backwater planet had offered his sister's hand to him, but the contract had said dead and the that was what the contractor got. He always fulfilled his contracts.

"It's not a bribe." The man shook his head and stopped when the young Bothan came back. She nervously glanced at Mortin who had refused to take off his helmet. The spy quickly ordered something random on the menu that had been set out and sent the girl on her way. "It's a counteroffer of sorts, an investment is perhaps a better word."

"How would this make me call the contract off?" Mortin asked. He was in no rush. As long as the spy was dead, he would be paid so he had time to listen.

"If I die, you won't have another chance to make a difference for Mandalore again." The man rolled up his sleeve revealing something that Mortin did not expect. The man had a Jaing Head skull tattoo, marking him and Mandalore, a brother. It could be fake, but to put on the tattoo was a statement not made lightly. Anyone not Mandalorian and caught with the tattoo was killed.

"Who are you?" Mortin asked, his gaze transfixed on the tattoo until it was hidden again beneath his clothes again. "What does Mandalore have to do with this."

"Mandalore is, for the first time in generations, under foreign control." The spy leaned forward, dead serious. "I'm offering you a chance to fight to free her from this cruel fate. Join the rebellion and let's free Mandalore from Imperial clutches." He waited for a response.

For once in his career, Mortin considered leaving his contract behind. If he did, the Empire would come after him, they didn't take betrayal lightly. He weighed the options. He wanted nothing more than a free Mandalore, even if it was possible for a government that didn't support the old ways came to power, it would still be ruled by Mandalorians like how it always should be. A chance for a free Mandalore was too good to pass up.

"If you can promise me a free Mandalore, I will fight."

The spy grinned. "I knew I could count on you vod." He reached out and clasped arms with Mortin who finally found that it was an appropriate time to remove his helmet.

"What do I call you?" Mortin asked now that he was with an ally and not a target.

"Rylak of Clan Jennis." The two spent the night laughing and sharing stories since it turned out that Sullust had already been sending shipments of ore to the rebellion and the meeting had been set up for the sole purpose of drawing Mortin out into the light.

The two Sullustans finished telling their stories of home and the topic changed to where the others came from. Mortin listened carefully. The galaxy was large and made him insignificant, but the more he left his mark on it, the more he would be remembered for and he hoped that one day he would be remembered as someone who made a difference. He also wanted those around him to be remembered as well so he listened to their stories so that if they fell, they would be remembered and he would pass their stories on.

"I thought I would find you here." Rylak sat down next to Mortin, his silly grin on his face. The two had been inseparable since their initial meeting on Coruscant. They had fought together against the Empire from Yavin 4, to Boz Pity, Tatooine and now on Hoth. Even though they had long discarded their armor for rebel uniforms to show that they were all one organization, they still recognized each other as fellow Mandalorians before anything else.

"Just waiting for the Empire to come knocking." Mortin shifted so their conversation would interrupt the other one. The men were getting into deep conversation about the different ocean worlds such as Mon Calamari and Manaan and how they believed that their oceans got so large.

"I always hated waiting." Rylak huffed sending a puff of vapor from his mouth. "I thought the Empire was supposed to be able to strike with hard and quick efficiency."

"You got to remember that the old or'dinii Emperor of theirs isn't as youthful as you or me." He chuckled. Neither of them were that young. Mortin was nearly fifty, though he looked more like thirty and Rylak was about thirty. Still able and capable of fighting, but no longer in their prime years. The Emperor on the other hand looked as if he could have been alive when Mandalorians had clashed with the Republic on Dxun thousands of years ago. "It takes him time to make decisions."

Rylak laughed at that. "I bet." His brows furrowed. "Though to be serious, how do you think this is going to go? The battle, I mean."

Mortin had been thinking about that quite a bit. There were a lot of similarities to Yavin and that hadn't gone to well either. Then again, the 501st was there and only at a fraction of its strength and managed to inflict heavy casualties. They would be here as well, this was too important to the Empire for them not to be. He would be facing Mandalorians out there, even if they were clones, they had the blood flowing through their veins. They would know freedom some day, when the Empire was gone, all Mandalorians would be free.

"Don't worry about that." Mortin replied and slapped Rylak on the back. "Just do what we're supposed to do and keep the Empire off the shields long enough for everyone to get to safety and it will all be fine." He did believe that.

Rylak, having never doubted Mortin before nodded and left it at that.

"Colonel." A Twi'lek ran up to him and saluted. "Sir."

"What is it?" Mortin stood up and the rest of the hangar went silent to listen to this report.

"Imperial shuttles are planet bound. They have Imperial walkers."

Mortin nodded and turned to the company that stood ready and waiting for his orders. "You heard him, men. We've got Imps on the way. Lock and load and get to your positions and let's give them one haran of a beating.

The company cheered and rushed out to the trenches. Mortin walked to the entrance of the hangar. The wind was picking up and cold air nipped at his exposed face. He could see the coming battle and he was ready for whatever horrors the Empire was going to throw at him.